Thursday, November 22, 2007

Pseudoresistant depression means not having received adequate treatment for major depression.

5 Features of inadequate treatment for Depression are:

The most common source of lack of response in depression is the administration of inadequate dosage. With some antidepressants, the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), there is evidence for a relationship between plasma levels and therapeutic outcome

Treatment duration with antidepressants. There is some evidence that elderly patients may require longer exposure to medication. At least adequate dosage during 4 weeks is the absolute minimum.

Adherence with treatment. Improvement is unlikely if patients do not adhere to treatment. Side-effects are a common cause.

It is important to evaluate treatment outcome. The greater the level of depressive symptomatology following antidepressant treatment the higher the probability of relapse. The goal in treating the acute episode is to achieve remission

Wrong diagnosis. If the antidepressant doesn't work this option should be considered. Several somatic illnesses and medication can present with depressive symptoms.

Nevertheless it is estimated that 20-40% of patients with a major depressive episode do not show substantial clinical improvement to their first antidepressant treatment.

Staging methods to assess levels of treatment resistance in depression are being developed:

The Antidepressant Treatment History form. A clinician rated instrument. This form is empirically validated via prospective treatment outcome reports. This form is mostly used with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) outcome. There is debate about the influence of treatment resistance and efficacy of ECT. Some studies show a negative influence on ECT outcome of medication resistance other studies can't find such an influence.

Harvard Antidepressant Treatment History. Clinician rated instrument.

Massachusetts General Hospital Treatment Response Questionnaire. Patient rated instrument. Advantage of this instrument is the absence of clinicians' biases, particularly when treatment resistance is required for inclusion in a study.

2 comments:

I have a couple/few questions about the definition of "Adherence to Treatment".

What severity/level of side effects should a patient expect to "accept" in order to become well?

When you include this as part of the definition of "adherence" are you thinking of transient side effects or side effects that never go away? If the latter, how does a patient adhere to treatment if the side effects are too severe?

I'm not undersatanding how this type of treatment adherence difficulties make the depression pseudo treatment resistant and not just treatment resistant. I could see it being pseudo if the patient simply refused to take medications or have treatments that might help them, but a patient who is sidelined by unacceptable side effects? How does a person feel well if they are struggling with difficult side effects? Hope this makes sense.A curious reader,...aqua

Not all patients share their side-effects with their doctor for or don't want to take the medication but are afraid to tell.This sometimes results in the patient not taking the drug or diminishing the dose.Regards Dr Shock

About Me

Dr Shock is a pseudonym for a psychiatrist working in a University Hospital. His main topics of interest are the treatment of depression and electro convulsive therapy. Other subjects for this personal blog are research, article reviews, book reviews and education. He loves computers and Internet.